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Before starting a foreign mission, journalists will learn a course on working in a harsh environment --
Learn about trauma first aid, weapon effects, and how to survive earthquakes, floods, and civil unrest.
It's all very useful training.
To live and work in India, I am very aware of the daily dangers that I will face.
India, for example, is one of the world's highest tolls, and Delhi is one of the world's worst places for sexual violence against women.
But I don't know that the most hostile thing I will encounter when I move to India is the air I have to breathe every day.
Less than a week after moving to Delhi, signs of trouble began.
I will wake up in the middle of the night and my throat is on fire.
I couldn't relieve the pain for hours lying in bed.
My partner is worse.
He had a chest infection and a sick cough.
I have read a lot of news stories about air pollution in Delhi;
Over the past three years, the situation has gotten worse and worse, reaching its peak in winter, and sometimes schools are closed and breathing air is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day.
Okay, I think I'm wearing a mask.
I'm going to buy a good one.
Until you breathe the air, until you taste the chemicals on your tongue, until when you go out, your eyes begin to drink water out of control, it's hard to really understand how it will affect your life.
So let me explain exactly what people in Delhi are sucking.
The biggest problem is the tiny air particles.
So small, you can hold 30 people in the width of human hair.
They are very small and can go deep into the lungs of people and enter the blood from there.
There, toxins can cause respiratory diseases, heart disease and cancer.
The first thing I used to do every morning was Check Twitter on my phone.
Now the first thing I check is one of many apps that send real air quality
Time data on the degree of air pollution.
Air quality is divided into good, medium and unhealthy categories.
Then it's very unhealthy.
Then it's dangerous.
It warned that "Outdoor is not recommended ".
There is also "excessive air quality index ".
When the air is so polluted, it cannot be measured.
According to guidelines developed by the World Health Organization, when the concentration of these tiny particles in the air is greater than "25 micrograms per cubic meter", unhealthy side effects will occur.
For those who can afford it, the solution is to buy at a high price
Your favorite room is equipped with a high-tech air purifier. Slick, wi-fi-
Swedish air purifier is enabled.
They rotate day and night
A gentle but constant reminder of the corrupt air they are dealing.
But there is a problem with breathing purified air.
Because the air is constantly circulating, the content of oxygen is slowly reduced and the content of carbon dioxide increases.
Carbon dioxide will eventually make you sleepy.
Your brain is getting blurry.
Then you have a choice.
Open the window and let fresh oxygen come in with fresh toxic air or deal with clean but dozing off
There's already air inside.
For millions of people in this superpower
City, there is no such thing. The street-
Vendors on firewood
Wallahs, children begging at the crossroads, street guards, traffic police, children who go to school every day --
They have no choice but to slowly suffocate the toxic air supplied by their city.
According to a study in the Journal of Medicine, in 2015, 25 of all premature deaths in Indiaor 2. 5 million —
It could be caused by pollution.
But there seems to be no political will or plan to solve the pollution problem.
Last month, a dramatic display of water guns was launched on the streets of several cities to "shoot down" the dust.
This week, the government announced that it would set up a "war room" in its pollution control department to monitor developments.
But it's all symbolic.
The deterioration of air quality in the past few years heralds a more dangerous future, even a dystopian one.
Without intervention, the environmental crisis would be a humanitarian disaster.
No matter how shocking and limited I find pollution, in my mind, I know that I will eventually leave.
For most of the 20 million inhabitants of Delhi, this is not an option. Topics:air-
Tourism pollutionhealth-and-